ABSTRACTS

W(h)ither the Deaf Community? Population, Genetics, and the Future of Australian Sign Language
- Trevor Johnston

According to enrollments in schools for the deaf and data from the national
census and neonatal hearing screening programs, the incidence of severe and
profound childhood deafness in Australia is, and has been, less than commonly
assumed. Factors implicated include improved medical care, mainstreaming,
cochlear implants, and genetic science. Data for the United States, Britain, and
other developed countries seem consistent with those for Australia. Declining
prevalence and incidence rates have immediate implications for sign-based
education, teacher-of-the-deaf training programs, and educational interpreting.
There are also serious consequences for research, documentation, and teaching
regarding Australian Sign Language (Auslan), and for the future viability of
Auslan. Prompt action is essential if a credible corpus of Auslan is to be
collected as the basis for a valid and verifiable description of one of the few
native sign languages in the world with significant attested historical depth.

Johnston argues that the impact of science and technology on the Australian Deaf
community threatens the viability of the community; this entails that the
scientists have a moral duty to record and preserve Auslan for posterity. This
response analyzes Johnston’s moral imperative through the application of
intrinsic and extrinsic values, suggesting that an extrinsic argument may be
more persuasive. Technology aims to alleviate human suffering; in this case, it
also contributes to human suffering by failing to assess the assumptions
resulting from conflating human suffering with “deafness as disability.”
Adopting a social model of disability changes the locus of human suffering;
consequently, other uses of technology, such as genetic selection for Deafness,
may be justifiable.

This article discusses Johnston’s estimate of the number of signing Deaf people
in Australia and queries whether it adequately accounts for nonnative signers or
reflects the numbers who make use of services in Auslan. It concurs with
Johnston’s projection of a decline in the size of this population, and discusses
the ways in which the Deaf community and allied professionals might respond to
this scenario.

From the evidence Johnston has presented, it is clear that the number of
children being born deaf in Australia has fallen off and that this decline is
likely to continue as a result of the technological and social factors he
outlines. It also seems that this reduction in numbers is reflected in other
countries for which data are available. It is not so clear whether this drop
will be as rapid as Johnston fears and whether it will have the effects he
predicts on the lives of Deaf people and on the viability of a lively community
of users of sign languages—in the Australian case, Auslan.

Responding to Johnston’s projections for the future of Australian Sign Language
(Auslan), I analyzed school enrollments in American educational programs and
found similar trends. There are fewer deaf and hard of hearing children in
school now than twenty years ago, with the largest decline, approximately 50
percent, among children with profound hearing losses. Consistent with the
Australian data, although to a smaller degree, increasing numbers of children
are educated through oral-only means, have cochlear implants, and are placed in
integrated settings.

Despite these trends, Johnston’s concerns for Auslan do not appear to apply to
ASL, primarily because the American population, and, by extension, the American
Deaf population, is fifteen times greater than that of Australia. Even with
reductions in numbers a critical mass will remain. Secondly, the American Deaf
community is heavily involved in education, more so than in any other country.
The future of ASL and the American Deaf community is strong.

My response to Johnston’s (2004) “W(h)ither the Deaf Community?” is theoretical
in nature and sociological in perspective. I comment on how Johnston’s
particular concern for the possible demise of Australian Sign Language (Auslan)
in Australia’s currently transforming social and medical context surrounding
childhood deafness is legitimate but perhaps a bit premature.

Inspired by Johnston’s thought-provoking article, this article reports from the
current Norwegian scene to make two main points. First, Norwegian Sign Language
paradoxically appears to be better protected as well as more threatened than
ever. Second, success in bilingual deaf education is not logically incompatible
with a placement primarily in the local school.

In my response to the commentaries made about my article, I observe that the
commentators find no obvious errors with my estimates of the size of the signing
deaf community. However, most of them are not as pessimistic as I am partly
because of the position they take on a number of issues. Namely, the supposed
uniqueness of Australia in its treatment of deaf people and deafness; the
relevancy of different types of signers to the fate of signed languages; the
inevitability or reversibility of declining numbers; the ethics of reproductive
technology; and, finally, the responsibilities of linguists vis-à-vis the
communities they work with. In my response, I show how we differently interpret
these issues and argue for my perspective on them.